Nevada Cowboy Dad

“Uh, Fritzy,” Lucy gently reminded her, “the baby?”

“Oh, this is Tom’s. You remember, one of Rusty’s brothers?” The graying woman shook her head sadly. “Such a shame, him dallying with that gal. Even she said it was just one night—but when will people learn—that’s all it takes!”

The baby waved plump arms and flexed its feet, forcing Fritzy to shift the weight to one generous hip. Her soft-printed house dress bunched up a little, but Fritzy didn’t appear to notice. The infant’s blue eyes stared back at Lucy, and she noticed the rounded head was bald but for a soft bit of auburn down. The child’s body was stuffed like a sausage into a pink terry one-piece suit, the seams pulled so tight Lucy could see frayed threads threatening to burst. She shrugged; maybe that’s how baby clothes were supposed to fit. On the creature’s feet were a kind of bootie, white, with mock laces.

The tot squealed again.

“Fritzy, what do you mean it’s Tom’s?” Lucy asked warily. She straightened to place her purse and case onto the couch. She’d never had any experience with children. In the first months of her marriage, Kenneth had gone off without her knowledge and paid a surgeon to perform a vasectomy. Kids got in the way, he’d said. Kids were a nuisance. Kids were a pain in the a—

“Tom got that woman pregnant, like I said,” Fritzy supplied. “Then that freeway accident happened and...well, after she delivered, she showed up here, shoved Baby at Rusty and said, ‘You keep the brat, I don’t want her.”’ Fritzy harrumphed and nuzzled the infant’s neck. “Imagine, abandoning a child just like that. It’s terrible. But we don’t mind, do we, Baby?” She finished by making a silly face at the child.

Before Lucy could voice another question, Fritzy glanced up. “You’ll help, won’t you dear? Not that I wouldn’t love to spend every minute with such a perfect little lamb, but I’ve got housekeeping to do, you know.” Without waiting for a reply, she came forward and bundled the baby into Lucy’s arms. “Hold my angel a bit. I’ve got to get that chicken roasting or we’ll have no supper!”

“No, wait!” Lucy cried as a warm sloppy mouth came flush with her throat, depositing spittle down her neck, and a wriggling body smashed against her chest. “Fritzy,” she wailed at the woman’s fast-retreating back, “I don’t know how—I can’t do this.”

“Nothing to it,” the housekeeper said with a wave of her hand.

Lucy dashed after her, awkwardly balancing the child in her arms. In the spacious kitchen with its sunflower yellow curtains and cozy nook, Fritzy lifted a large blue-speckled roasting pan onto the tiled countertop and settled a raw chicken into its depths.

“Just a minute,” Lucy panted. Babies were heavier than she would have guessed they could be. “I’ve got to get this straight. Are you saying that Rusty’s brother Tom indulged in a one-night stand with some woman he didn’t know, and that this baby was born after his death?”

“Yes, dear.” Without looking up, Fritzy began spreading the chicken skin with herbs, then shook salt and pepper on top.

“And then,” Lucy continued doggedly, determined to get matters clear, “the woman came here and sort of...dropped it off?” On her shoulder, tiny fingers tried to pull one of Lucy’s small hoop earrings into its mouth. Lucy batted at the pudgy, grabbing hands. She was beginning to have a terrible sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.

“Yes, dear.” Fritzy poured a cup of what looked like broth into the roaster and took up a basting brush to paint melted butter over the chicken.

“Ouch,” Lucy yelped. The child had clamped the earring and her earlobe into its fist and was pulling both toward the yawing maw of its mouth. Dismayed, Lucy wondered how such a minuscule hand could wield all the strength of a lumberjack. With great difficulty, considering she had to juggle the infant with one arm, she finally managed to free her ear.

Over her shoulder Fritzy smiled. “You shouldn’t wear jewelry any more,” she said. “At least not for a while. Babies are like crows—everything that glitters catches their eyes.” She chuckled at her own joke.

Lucy did not laugh. The sinking sensation had reached her toes. “You can’t mean,” she began, speaking slowly and distinctly so that Fritzy wouldn’t misunderstand, “that this baby lives here, in this house.”

The housekeeper paused in surprise. She smoothed her gingham apron over her stout midsection. “Course I do. Gracious, where would you expect the child to live? It’s why I moved up from my cottage. I was thinking of moving back sometime, but,” she frowned, then resumed her work, “I s’pose with you here now I’d best stay. Wouldn’t be right—an eligible bachelor like Rusty and a sweet young thing like you living alone under one roof.” Her graying topknot bobbled as she shook her head. “No, indeed.”

Of all the developments Lucy had expected to arise from her business deal with Rusty, she’d never considered anything like this. Numbed by shock, she wondered what other little surprises Rusty might have in store for her.

Lucy placed her protesting burden in the crib while she took three minutes to change into her jeans, an old black sweatshirt and tennis shoes, and twenty more to wrestle the baby’s flailing, stubby limbs into a new diaper and another too-tight suit. Fritzy insisted she had kitchen work, that Lucy could of course change Baby—there was nothing to it—and had sent her off with a box of diapers.

The child’s bedroom was on the second floor, between the one Rusty had assigned to her and his own. A wood-slatted crib with clown-print bedding, a lamp and a changing table were the only pieces of furniture. The walls were an unadorned white, and nothing much matched. Even to Lucy’s untrained eye, the nursery appeared bare. Weren’t there supposed to be teddy bears, toy chests, hanging colored mobiles?

At the changing table, the disposable hourglass-shaped diaper was fitted with confusing tapes, which maddeningly kept sticking to her skin, to the bedding and even together. Then Lucy somehow got the baby’s arms into the outfit’s leg holes and the legs into the arm holes before she managed to figure out the intricacies of such an ensemble, but in the end she was triumphant.

And she learned that the child was a girl.

Lucy blew a strand of hair from her eyes.

Presumably to show gratitude, the baby squealed with impressive volume.

“You’re welcome,” Lucy replied. Guessing the pink plastic pail beside the changing table was the dirty diaper receptacle, she bent low and removed the tightfitting top. Like demons from Pandora’s box, an eyewatering, brain-numbing odor of revoltingly appalling proportions burst forth.

Lucy staggered, slammed down the lid and abandoned the diaper on the table for Fritzy to deal with later. In the hallway she paused and took grateful moments to breathe in lungfuls of clean air.

Back in the kitchen with her cleaned-up human cargo, Lucy expected Fritzy to be suitably impressed and ready to take over, but the corpulent woman, now peeling potatoes, merely suggested she carry the child down to the corrals.

“Fritzy,” Lucy said carefully, still holding the infant, “I, uh, don’t know how to do stuff with a baby.”

“stuff?”

“You know...things.” Trying to explain, Lucy floundered while the baby attempted to flop out of her arms. She struggled to hold the slippery infant. “Like...feed her. Or, um, give her a bath. Or—” What else did one do with babies? “Uh, or other stuff.”

“Lucy, Lucy,” Fritzy replied kindly, “don’t worry. You’ll learn. Experience is the best teacher.”

“I’m afraid,” Lucy explained even more kindly, “that this will have to remain your job. I’m not very maternal.” Hadn’t Kenneth told her many times that she’d make a poor mother?

Because she knew she and her husband would never become parents, she’d long avoided children, ignored baby shower invitations, declined to hold acquaintances’ newborns. Why should she, when she’d never get one of her own—when cuddling someone else’s darling only made the ache for her own children sting so profoundly?

She tried to hand over the child, but Fritzy scoffed, peeling another potato.

“It’ll be all right, Lucy, you’ll see. Now, why don’t you go down to the corrals? Baby just loves to see the horses.” She turned her back and filled an enormous pot with water, salted it, and then began slicing potatoes inside.

Alarm replaced Lucy’s growing apprehension, spiked up her spine like a hand running over barbwire. Fritzy was determined that Lucy help in child care, of this she had no further illusions. Slice went Fritzy’s paring knife, plop went the potato into the water. Frustrated, Lucy stared at Fritzy’s broad back.

Fritzy ignored her.

Slice. Plop. Slice. Plop.

This was ridiculous. How dare Rusty neglect to mention this almost-brand-new child to her!

She’d come to the Lazy S searching for peace, for quiet and tranquility.

Not squalling voices and grabby fingers and... peepee!

“I will go down to the corrals,” she said aloud. If Fritzy was going to be stubborn, she’d get Rusty to take the child. It was his niece, wasn’t it? “Nothing personal,” she whispered into the baby’s shell-like ear. Suddenly she noticed that the baby’s scent was different from anything she’d ever smelled before. Different but good, and thank goodness nothing like that disgusting diaper pail. No, more like fresh-from-the-oven buns or soft, lovable puppies.

She shook off the thought. “I’m just not the motherly sort,” she whispered. “You understand, don’t you?”

Baby cooed.

With a fleecy blanket Fritzy handed her, Lucy managed to wrap the child up against the cooling air, clamp it to her chest and march out.

Autumn was beginning to cloak western Nevada in hues of russet and claret, turning the leaves of grouped alder and spruce trees into a fall-colored kaleidoscope. Winter sun had nearly sunk behind the fanged upthrust of the Humboldt mountains.

Outside the house, Lucy paused a moment to draw a breath. Pure, lung-expanding air filled her chest, scented of sage and the faintest hint of a branding fire. For once, the tyke made no sound, merely nestled her face into the crook of Lucy’s neck. The sensation wasn’t so bad, she thought, not really minding the child’s wet mouth anymore. And she so enjoyed the chirrup of the coming night crickets and the breeze soughing serenely through the trees’ brittle leaves.

There was no honking of angry commuters, no blare of city sirens, no suffocating exhaust fumes. One could relax here, find solace from the frenetic pace of city life.

These qualities were why she’d come to the country, she thought, pleased. Others should have the chance to enjoy this wonderful environment. How easily she could picture groups of twenty or so—nice, hardworking city folk who needed a place to relax, appreciate country sunshine, wildlife, the great outdoors.